Josep Maria de Sagarra - Private Life

Sometimes when the two of them found themselves at table, and Don Tomàs found the oil on the cauliflower a bit rancid or maybe he had choked on a lump in his semolina soup, he would start to spit out words of bile against his elder son or his daughter. Leocàdia would observe the volcanic explosion of her husband’s teeth and the artificial cloud of smoke formed by the scarce and untamed bristles of his moustache, speckled with semolina. As the wick of his anger burned down, Leocàdia’s pupils, veiled by an otherworldly web, would scrub the pepper from Don Tomàs’s tongue and he would finish up with a little cough and bend his head over his plate. After a moment of silence, husband and wife would look at each other in embarrassment, and the bead of a tear would shimmer in the corner of their eyes.

It was then that Don Tomàs realized that of all the fruits he had harvested in this world of vanities, all he had left was that little handful of flesh and bones, that white head, those eyes and those wandering teeth. Don Tomàs realized that, for him, love, friendship, sexual joy, and his most vibrant expectations had all come down to the smile of a whitish lady who could barely draw an easy breath, by the name of Leocàdia …

Leocàdia! That overblown, romantic, inexpressive flower, as full of virtues as an aged ratafia liqueur, whom he had met at a storied ball held in Barcelona to celebrate the first marriage of Alphonse XII. In those days Leocàdia wore a suffocating corset and a pink satin dress with a bustle and a ruffled train, and amidst the combination of stitches and backstitches and the chastity of her chemise breathed the flesh of Leocàdia’s bosom, made of bland white camellias, lacking in fragrance or promise, restrained by her extremely discreet neckline and a great ribbon of sky blue velvet, as tight as a dog’s collar. Leocàdia was escorted by her father, the old Senyor de Cisterer, blind in one eye from a bullet fired by the liberals, taut and plump as a bass viol and having the same deep, hoarse, and solemn resonances as a bass viol. Old Cisterer introduced his youngest daughter, who dared not lift her eyes from the ground, and when the time came to meet the Lloberola heir, who was in those days resplendent, wealthy, and unattainable, a discreet tremor ran over her camellia bosoms in a lyrical and devoted way, as if they were obeying the gentle gust produced by the wing of a dove.

In the moments of arid vision that followed his distaste at the adulterated cooking oil or the lump in the semolina, Don Tomàs de Lloberola, his eyes half-closed, was fond of discovering, in the failed pretensions of his inner landscape, the Leocàdia of the rose-colored dress clinging to the rigid sleeve of old Cisterer, beneath the innumerable glass chandeliers with their thousand yellow tongues of gas instinctively following the rhythm of the rigaudon. The music of that dance was in some way reminiscent of a military parade, and it gave el Senyor de Lloberola satisfaction to follow the complicated steps of the rigaudon, because it seemed to him that they evoked a tactical je-ne-sais-quoi . That silly music lacking in spirit or passion, infused with the most colorless mechanical frenzy, filled his heart with the trembling of his adolescent hours, the Carlists in the mountains, the barricades and fanfares of the brass bands (that might just as soon accompany a bishop as a thief being led to the garrotte) or the poor cripples dressed up in grotesque costumes for Carnaval who were paraded past the Lloberola mansion, where he would go out on the balcony and throw them a few xavos, the coins that had been used to pay the indemnization for the African war. Over the tablecloth of the dining alcove Don Tomàs relived that earlier Leocàdia and that earlier Barcelona, in which he still meant something. For Don Tomàs everything had changed. To console himself over his current misery he would repeat continually: “In my day it was not so …”, “I am from another world …” His Leocàdia was also from another world; the young woman with the bustle clinging to the arm of old Cisterer was a poor, insignificant old lady, whom no one respected or held in consideration, who would be given no special treatment in a clothing store. Only at the door of a church in the old neighborhood, when Leocàdia would go back for some particular devotional rite, would she come across a woman as anachronical as she herself, who had been begging for alms there for years. When Leocàdia bent down over her alms plate and dropped a five cèntim coin into it, the poor woman would look at her with glacial and obsequious eyes and effortlessly utter:

“May God be with you, Senyora Marquesa.”

AS FREDERIC LISTENED to the weak, rhythmic tinkling of a coffee cup subjected to the pressure of a phosphorescent cat’s tongue in Rosa Trènor’s kitchen, some curious scenes were unfolding in Dorotea Palau’s dress shop.

Dorotea had once been Senyora de Lloberola’s family seamstress. Leocàdia would have her to her house two afternoons a week. Following the tradition of the ladies of old who preferred, whenever possible, for their clothing to be fabricated at home, Leocàdia invested a great deal of her time in the sewing of underwear for her husband and children, among other things of a more decorative nature. In those days Dorotea was a quiet and retiring girl, with a romantic oval-shaped face, and eyes between green and gray, without sparkle, like the wings of those quiet insects that blend into the leaves of plants. Dorotea turned out to be an excellent worker; she was always in the company of a young man she claimed was her brother, who must have been a couple of years older than she. Everyone was convinced of Dorotea’s modesty and good faith until, one day, without anyone’s ever knowing the reason why, Dorotea stopped serving in the Lloberola house, as a result of which Don Tomàs and Leocàdia wore long faces for a week. Later on, as it appears, it came to be known that Dorotea was the protegée of an important gentleman who spent seasons in Paris, and she had married a French hairdresser. Others said she hadn’t married, but had had a child; still others that Dorotea was dead. But all of this is old news, and most likely a pack of lies.

Twenty years after leaving the service of the Lloberolas, Dorotea Palau was a single woman over forty, rich, generous with others, and the head of her own fashion house, which was patronized by very well-known ladies from the finest set. That afternoon, a man who couldn’t quite seem to decide whether or not to press the doorbell stood before Dorotea’s door. On the door was a plaque that proclaimed “Palau-Couture” to anyone who could read. It was a young man whom no one would have guessed to be more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old, though he must have been past thirty. Dressed in the style of the young men of the day concerned with being in vogue, his garments were clearly refashioned hand-me-downs. Biting down on a dying cigar that was unraveling like an old broom, the young man squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the brim of his hat down over his nose. After contemplating the plaque, he shrugged his shoulders and rang the bell with the puerile force and ill will of a boy crushing an ant’s belly.

IN THE FOYER, Dorotea greeted the young man with a profusion of smiles, and then, to break the silence, she said, in a maternal voice:

“It’s not even five in the afternoon! You certainly have come early today!”

“I was tired of walking around, Dorotea, and as you know we have a bit of business beforehand. I am like a great actor; I need a good bit of time to apply my makeup.”

“Please don’t talk so loud, for the love of God! I have more than twenty-five girls working in the front workshop and two ladies waiting in the dressing room!”